Shao Lin xiao zi

Ah, those mid-'80s golden days of VHS rental...you could find all sorts of obscure films. Many of them are unavailable now, but thankfully "Shaolin Death Squad" has been released on DVD! Starring Polly Shang Kwan (Shang Kwan Ling Fung, the gorgeous female lead in King Hu's "Dragon Gate Inn"), Carter Wong, and Chang Yi, this is one of the nicer faux-Shaw Brothers productions. The costumes are gaudy, the weapons are exotic, and the action is irresistible! Particularly memorable are the villain's two henchmen, who have a seemingly endless supply of "golden pills"; when they are injured in battle, they simply pop one of these babies and it magically heals their wounds! This makes for one hell of a scene near the end of the film. The storyline of "Shaolin Death Squad" actually has nothing to do with the Shaolin Temple. Joseph Kuo had directed a long series of successful Shaolin-themed movies prior to this, so that's probably why they threw the magic word into the title.

A great film with excellent comedy based about the conflict between the shaolin and wudong groups. jet li plays an excellent role, as usual, and goes brilliantly with the movie, the shaolin temple. 10/10 for me

The Shaolin Kids (aka The Shaolin Death Squad) 1977....

I'm surprised that the reviews aren't screwed up here. There are a few movies (as usual) that can be mixed up in the reviews.

Asian Cinema Guy and InjunNose have it right talking about henchmen taking "golden pills" and "an evil premier who wants to overthrow the ruler", but, james86 mentions Jet Li (which is hilarious) because this movie was made in 1977 and Jet's first movie (Shaolin Temple) was in 1982. James86 is talking about "Shaolin Temple 2: Kids from Shaolin" from 1984 (aka Kids from Shaolin) which indeed has Jet Li but shouldn't be reviewed here. Once again an easy mistake to be made.

There's another movie that I thought would be mistaken here called "Shaolin Death Squads" from 1976 starring Polly Kuan, Carter Wong, Lung Fei and Cliff Lok which could easily get screwed up unless you look at the directors. Both of these movies can be found with the title "Shaolin Death Squad".

This movie was enjoyable.... I give it a 6

No pun intended - and while there is a female in a bigger role in this, my summary line was not even remotely meant to "target" her. No this is about the weapons used in the movie. Which all clearly are not metal! And while you can't really tell maybe during the fights, you can tell when they just hold the "weapons". Yes the movie may look its best since it was released (or maybe even better than it did back then), but it also has the added "bonus" of showing us things like this.

That all aside, the fights are nice and are thrown every once in a while. This may have more story than most movies Joseph Kuo made. He still obviously likes to ... let's call it inspire himself by other movies and actors. But that's ok, when the end result works like a charme ... or something close to it.